Corrections and Explanations: Bart Buxton is President and CEO of McLaren Health Management Group. In an earlier version of this story, an incorrect version of the company name was listed.
Detailed data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week illustrates how many hospitals have recovered the country from the COVID-19 pandemic’s third wave.
Although more than 1,500 Americans die from COVID-19 every day, the new data show COVID-19 patients, who account for a smaller and smaller proportion of hospital admissions across the country, the most drastic regions in the West and South , who was hit hard by the illness through the holidays.
“Overall, we see the number of COVID patients in our hospitals at the lowest levels in more than a year,” Bart Buxton, president and CEO of McLaren Health Management Group in Michigan, said in an email. “We currently have less than 80 patients in our 15 hospitals with SARS-COV-2 primary diagnosis, and many of the patients are in our ICUs.”
Dr. Nicholas Mark, a doctor in critical care in Seattle, says he has also seen improvement. “Things have definitely gotten a lot better over the last few months.”
The number of hospitals with more than half of the patients infected with COVID-19 has dropped from 193 to 10 since the beginning of January. States such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and South Carolina have experienced the strongest declines in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to HHS data.
Intensive care units also became less stressed. The number of hospitals with ICUs with a capacity or higher has fallen by more than 50% since the beginning of January. There were 138 hospitals reporting full intensive care units on March 4, up from 324 in the week of January 8-14 – the lowest level since the week of November 6-12.
The number of hospitals reporting ICUs filled exclusively with patients confirmed or suspected to have COVID-19 has dropped from 35 to four since early January.
This data, which is reported by more than 4,500 hospitals, does not include hospitals taught by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Health Agency and the Indian Health Service. Figures from some small hospitals have been removed from the HHS dataset.
In December, HHS began reporting on individual hospital occupancy rates, including detailed statistics for intensive care units. The COVID-19 rate is the number of adult patients confirmed or suspected to be infected divided by the number of beds allowed within normal patients. Occupancy can exceed 100% if a hospital exceeds the limits.
“These numbers are very encouraging,” said Dr. Karen Joynt Maddox, a professor at the Washington University School of Medicine, said. “We have a long way to go, but things are definitely heading in the right direction. Keeping COVID patients out of ICU beds is good as far as COVID is concerned, but it’s also good in terms of so many other things. – to have the ability to take care of patients who need cancer treatment, or patients who need heart surgery, or patients who need trauma care. “
Aleszu Bajak is on Twitter at @aleszubajak or can be emailed to [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hospitals report worst of COVID-19 pandemic’s third wave